The current study mainly explores the ‘subject-preference' phenomenon and the interaction between word order and animacy in thematic role assignment of Mandarin Chinese. The design of our three experiments are the same, and they use the different method to investigate the question above respectively. Three experiments are all 2×2 within-subject factorial designs: one of the factor is word order, namely, the first argument is subject or object( subject first, object first); the other factor is the animacy of the first argument( animate, inanimate). The material is correct, natural Chinese simple sentences. The basic structure of the sentence is 'noun + verbs + ……', and all the nouns and verbs are double words. The key word is the verb that resolve ambiguity.Experiment 1 and 2 used the moving-window self-paced reading method, with the thematic roles judgement and reading comprehension task to explore ‘subject-preference’ and its interaction with animacy respectively. The results found that, in the experiment 1, the processing of subject first condition is easier than object first condition. And there wasn’t the effect of animacy. In experiment 2, the processing of subject first condition is easier than object first condition. And there was the interaction between the word order and animacy. It was absent of the simple effect of word order in animate condition, and it was absent of the word order effect in inanimate condition.Because the moving-window method isn’t the natural way of reading, the experiment 3 was conducted. Experiment 3 used eye movement technology to do further validation of experiment 1 and 2 in more natural reading way of whole sentences. The results found that, the first fixation time and the total time of the subject first condition is shorter than object condition in the key word. There was the interaction between word order and animacy of the first pass time in the key word. In animate condition, the word order effect was absent. And in inanimate condition, the first pass time of the subject first condition was shorter than object first condition. According to the present results, we found as follow， 1、The conclusion of this study further proof that the 'subject- preference' phenomenon is cross-language. 2、Just as particularity in chinese, animacy as a special factor couldinteract with 'subject-preference' and lead to the disapearance of this phenomenon.
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